Seoul Station, Saturday 29 April 2017, 12:30pm. It is the first full day of my Korea trip. I had arrived in Seoul the previous evening, catching the bus to my mid-range hotel near Jogyesa. I had found my favourite coffee shop, had dinner with good friends in Hoban, a traditional, earthy eating house in Nakwondong, … [Read More]
Artist: Min Young-ki
2015 Travel Diary day 6: return to Sancheong
Seomyeon, Busan, Wednesday 3 June Min arrives at the hotel as agreed at 9:30 and we drive to the Centum City area for a late breakfast. The venue is Yangsan Gukbap, and as with many Korean restaurants the clue to the menu is in the name of the establishment, which is open 24 hours a … [Read More]
2013 Travel Diary #7: Min Young-ki’s new directions
Danseong-myeon, Sancheong-gun, Saturday 7 September, 2pm. We’d had dinner with him the day before last, but this afternoon it was time to pay a more formal visit to Min Young-ki and to see his latest work. When I had visited the previous year, he had been preparing for an exhibition of his famous tea bowls … [Read More]
A visit to Min Young-ki
When I visited Sancheong for the first time in 2010 one of the items on my agenda was a visit to Sancheong’s finest potter – and indeed Korea’s most renowned tea-bowl maker – Min Young-ki (민영기). Unfortunately owning to a diary mixup Min Senior was not there, and instead I had a very pleasant meeting … [Read More]
2010 Travel Diary #34: A visit to Sancheong’s finest potter
In 1592, Japan invaded Korea. Their ultimate destination was China, but they never got further than Korea, and they wrought havoc there. During their occupation, which lasted on and off until their second invasion in 1598 was repelled by Admiral Yi Sun-shin’s famous turtle ships, they sent back to Japan in their ships a human … [Read More]